“I am too close …” I am too close for him to dream of me. I don't flutter over him, don't flee him beneath the roots of trees. I am too close. The caught fish doesn't sing with my voice. The ring doesn't roll from my finger. I am too close. The great house is on fire without me calling for help. Too close for one of my hairs to turn into the rope of the alarm bell. Too close to enter as the guest before whom walls retreat. I'll never die again so lightly, so far beyond my body, so unknowingly as I did once in his dream. I am too close, too close, I hear the word hiss and see its glistening scales as I lie motionless in his embrace. He's sleeping, more accessible at this moment to an usherette he saw once in a travelling circus with one lion, than to me, who lies at his side. A valley now grows within him for her, rusty-leaved, with a snowcapped mountain at one end rising in the azure air. I am too close to fall from that sky like a gift from heaven. My cry could only waken him. And what a poor gift: I, confined to my own form, when I used to be a birch, a lizard shedding times and satin skins in many shimmering hues. And I possessed the gift of vanishing before astonished eyes, which is the richest of all. I am too close, too close for him to dream of me. I slip my arm from underneath his sleeping head – it's numb, swarming with imaginary pins. A host of fallen angels perches on each tip, waiting to be counted. Wisława Szymborska (from Salt 1962) 1 “Over Wine” He glanced, gave me extra charm and I took it as my own. Happily I gulped a star. I let myself be invented, modelled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings. The chair’s a chair, the wine is wine, in a wineglass that’s the wineglass standing there by standing there. Only I’m imaginary, make-believe beyond belief, so fictitious that it hurts. And I tell him tales about ants that die of love beneath a dandelion’s constellation. I swear a white rose will sing if you sprinkle it with wine. I laugh and I tilt my head cautiously, as if to check whether the invention works. I dance, dance inside my stunned skin, in his arms that create me. Eve from the rib, Venus from foam, Minerva from Jupiter’s head – all three were more real than me. When he isn’t looking at me, I try to catch my reflection on the wall. And I see the nail where a picture used to be. Wisława Szymborska (from Salt 1962) 2 “A Moment in Troy” Little girls – skinny, resigned to freckles that won’t go away, not turning any heads as they walk across the eyelids of the world, looking just like Mom or Dad, and sincerely horrified by it – in the middle of dinner, in the middle of a book, while studying the mirror, may suddenly be taken off to Troy. In the grand boudoir of a wink they all turn into beautiful Helens. They ascend the royal staircase in the rustling of silk and admiration. They feel light. They all know that beauty equals rest, that lips mold the speech’s meaning, and gestures sculpt themselves in inspired nonchalance. Their small faces worth dismissing envoys for extend proudly on necks that merit countless sieges. Those tall, dark movie stars, their girlfriends’ older brothers, the teacher from art class, alas, they must all be slain. Little girls observe disaster from a tower of smiles. Little girls wring their hands in intoxicating mock despair. Little girls against a backdrop of destruction, 3 with flaming towns for tiaras, in earrings of pandemic lamentation. Pale and tearless. Triumphant. Sated with the view. Dreading only the inevitable moment of return. Little girls returning. Wisława Szymborska (from Salt 1962) 4 “Golden Anniversary” They must have been different once, fire and water, miles apart, robbing and giving in desire, that assault on one another’s otherness. Embracing, they appropriated and expropriated each other for so long that only air was left within their arms, transparent as if after lightning. One day the answer came before the questions. Another night they guessed their eye’s expression by the type of silence in the dark. Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colours coincide in white. Which of them is doubled and which missing? Which one is smiling with two smiles? Whose voice forms a two-part canon? When both heads nod, which one agrees? Whose gesture lifts the teaspoon to their lips? Who’s flayed the other one alive? Which one lives and which has died entangled in the lines of whose palm? They gazed into each other’s eyes and slowly twins emerged. Familiarity breeds the most perfect of mothers - it favors neither of the little darlings, it scarcely can recall which one is which. On this festive day, their golden anniversary, A dove, seen identically, perched on the windowsill. Wisława Szymborska (from Salt 1962) 5 “Without A Title” The two of them were left so long alone, so much in un-love, without a word to spare, what they deserve by now is probably a miracle – a thunderbolt, or turning into stone. Two million books in print on Greek mythology, but there’s no rescue in them for this pair. If at least someone would ring the bell, or if something would flare and disappear again, no matter from where and no matter when, no matter if it’s fun, fear, joy or grief. But nothing of the sort. No aberration, no deviation from the well-made plot this bourgeois drama holds. There’ll be a dot above the “i” inside their tidy separation. Against the backdrop of the steadfast wall, pitying one another, they both stare into the mirror, but there’s nothing there except their sensible reflections. All they see is the two people in the frame. Matter is on alert. All its dimensions, everything in between the ground and sky keeps close watch on the fates that we were born with and sees to it that they remain the same – although we still don’t see the reason why a sudden deer bounding across this room would shatter the entire universe. Wisława Szymborska (from Salt 1962) 6 “Lot’s Wife” They say I looked back out of curiosity. But I could have had other reasons. I looked back mourning my silver bowl. Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap. So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape of my husband Lot's neck. From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead he wouldn't so much as hesitate. From the disobedience of the meek. Checking for pursuers. Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind. Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop. I felt age within me. Distance. The futility of wandering. Torpor. I looked back setting my bundle down. I looked back not knowing where to set my foot. Serpents appeared on my path, spiders, field mice, baby vultures. They were neither good nor evil now - every living thing was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic. I looked back in desolation. In shame because we had stolen away. Wanting to cry out, to go home. Or only when a sudden gust of wind unbound my hair and lifted up my robe. It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again. I looked back in anger. To savor their terrible fate. I looked back for all the reasons given above. I looked back involuntarily. It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me. It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks. A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge. It was then we both glanced back. No, no. I ran on, I crept, I flew upward until darkness fell from the heavens and with it scorching gravel and dead birds. I couldn't breathe and spun around and around. Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing. It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open. It's possible I fell facing the city. Wisława Szymborska (from A Large Number 1976) 7 “Nothing Twice” Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice. Even if there is no one dumber, and you’re the planets biggest dunce, you can’t repeat the class in summer: this course is only offered once. No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with exactly the same kisses. One day perhaps some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent. The next day, though you’re here with me, I can’t help looking at the clock: A rose? A rose? What could that be? Is it a flower or a rock? Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: Today is always gone tomorrow.